DEVELOPMENT OF AN ENHANCED PELICAN RSA ENCRYPTION TECHNIQUE FOR DATA SECURITY SYSTEM

Abstract

In today’s digital world, strong data security is crucial, focusing on confidentiality, authentication, integrity, and non-repudiation. The Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) algorithm, a key public-key cryptographic method, secures communication based on the difficulty of prime factorization. However, its security and efficiency face threats from advanced factorization techniques. This study enhances RSA by integrating the Pelican Optimization Algorithm (POA), a nature-inspired metaheuristic, to optimize key generation and parameters boosting both security and performance. The Pelican RSA cryptosystem for image security was developed using a structured approach. The dataset which consists of 25 medical images were gotten from public sources, were pre-processed and converted to JPEG format. The encryption task was defined, and the Pelican Optimization Algorithm (POA) was integrated with RSA to improve key generation and encryption. Images were divided into blocks and encrypted individually using the optimized RSA. A MATLAB 2020a GUI was built for user interaction. POA-enhanced RSA was compared to traditional RSA using encryption time, decryption time, throughput and memory size. Decrypted images were reconstructed to verify accuracy and effectiveness.  The results of the evaluation and comparison indicate that Pelican RSA achieved reduction in encryption time from 9.45–19.93s to 4.48–8.89s, decryption time from 11.54s to 4.61s and boosts throughput from 3.57–7.51 kb/s to 9.50–14.99 kb/s. Although it uses slightly more memory (678 KB vs. 569 KB), this is justified by its speed and efficiency.

This study shows that using the Pelican Optimization Algorithm (POA) greatly improves RSA cryptosystem security. POA enhances key generation and parameter tuning, boosting resistance to prime factorization attacks. This makes RSA more reliable for secure online communication. The core contribution is applying a nature inspired optimization method to strengthen public-key cryptography.

Keywords: Authentication, integrity, and non-repudiation, Pelican Optimization, Algorithm-based

DOI: 10.7176/JIEA/15-2-07

Publication date: August 28^th 2025